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Two PSUs died, what else is wrong?

T

timberdoodle

Gawd
Joined
Sep 22, 2008
Messages
878
I have a Dell Poweredge 2950 that I recently aquired from work. It has been working right along for about a month. About a week ago, it started up and gave two fan RPM errors on the front display. I looked inside and sure enough 2 system fans weren't spinning. I didn't think much of it since there are 4. Recently, I physically moved the server to a different room. I powered it up, lights came on for awhile but it seemed quiet. After about 20 seconds it went completely dark, nothing. I opened up the case, reseated a few things, nothing. I tried the second power supply - it has redundant psu's. All the lights came on and the drives spun up but all 4 of the system fans did not work and nothing came up on a display.

I replaced the motherboard assuming that would be the logical step. I fired it up with the new motherboard, again all the lights came on, drives, but no system fans. After about 20 seconds I heard a loud pop, all dark. The second psu blew. What the hell is going on? I'm sure it is a short but how would it develop out of the blue and how can I test components without shelling out big bucks.
 
I doubt it is a short on the motherboard since I have already tried two boards and there is nothing on the case that is out of the norm as far as factory design.

Yes they are hot swap psus, I guess it could be the power distribution board. Any suggestions on how to test?
 
you might be able to try an off the shelf PSU directly to the motherboard..
 
I wondered about that. There is a 24 pin connector but it goes from the motherboard to the backplane.
 
hmm im not 100% familiar with the 2900 but on the dells ive worked on the PDB should have a 24pin and an 8 pin for the mobo, and then a seperate connector for the backplane. you can try just seeing if the system posts, even without drives.
 
Yea I don't think I can do it that way. Probably going to have to buy another psu and keep testing.
 
One of the drives or one of the fans could be shorted out.

It could also be because something on the motherboard died/shorted out (VRM, chipset, capacitor). It could even be that a CPU fried and took some voltage regulators with it.

Are there any add-in cards. Something on an add-in card could have shorted.
 
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